• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Civic Ed>
  3. civic engagement>

Students must do more than just check the box on civic education

Kevin Frazier
August 27, 2021
Students at the state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif.

Students need to do more than just learn about democracy. They need to live it, writes Frazier.

Education Images/Getty Images

Frazier, a student at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, runs The Oregon Way, a nonpartisan blog.


A few weeks back, the Tualatin Rotary Club kindly invited me to speak about The Oregon Way, the nonpartisan blog I started as a way to revive Oregon's civic culture. I ran through a presentation that, among other things, called for improving civic knowledge in the state.

When the meeting ended, a former educator approached me. They wanted to make sure I knew about SB 513, a recently passed bill meant to shore up civic education in Oregon schools. And, while the bipartisan legislators that championed that bill deserve praise, it's a woefully inadequate response to a dire lack of civic knowledge. Real civic knowledge requires civic education as well as civic experience.

The text of the bill itself lays out the dismal state of civic knowledge among America's youth. The last time high school seniors took a national assessment on civic knowledge — back in 2010 — less than one in four students scored "proficient." One in three had a "below basic" knowledge of our democracy. In response, the Oregon Legislature passed a bill that's too late and does too little.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The crux of the bill — a requirement to pass a civics course before graduation — doesn't come into force until the Class of 2026 (students just starting eighth grade). In the interim, Oregon will continue to send students through an education system without preparing them to thrive as democratic participants. Most other states also require some sort of credit requirement prior to graduation.

But a couple of credits from civics-related courses will leave students short of developing meaningful civic knowledge. Imagine if Michael Jordan's basketball education was confined to reciting the rules of the game. Do you think he'd be the greatest of all time? No.

Most students will treat the mandated courses and assignments like any other requirement — check the box, complete the tests and move on to the next thing. What made MJ incredible was actually getting in the game. We need to give our future leaders the same opportunity — civic education and civic experience.

If we really want to prepare students to shape our democracy, then we must create opportunities for them to practice just that — actually participating. Of course, a basic understanding of our Bill of Rights, Constitution and federalist system is essential, but numerous and substantive experiences in democratic activities can be transformative.

The other person who came up to me after the meeting had just that sort of transformative experience. Her school required every student to work on a political campaign before graduation. She was assigned to assist Leon Panetta in his race for Congress. Of course, Panetta won that race and, decades later, eventually served as secretary of defense. With every move Panetta made up the political ladder, his student campaign volunteer kept her eye on him — she felt like she had an obligation to see if he lived up to the initial campaign pledges he made so many years before. That's civic knowledge in action.

Imagine if we empowered young Americans to attend city council meetings, submit testimony to the state legislature, and volunteer for a campaign of their choice (local, state or federal). That's the sort of learning that will build on traditional conceptions of civic education and actually improve civic knowledge.

Some people will say that requiring civic experiences just isn't feasible in these partisan times. And it's true that a participation requirement is more controversial than merely asking students to recite the Bill of Rights. However, that requirement, as mentioned above, doesn't have to be tied to a particular party, candidate or ideology. Attending a semester's worth of city council meetings doesn't force any sort of speech or preach a certain ideology, it merely reminds students that they have a seat at the table — and should make the most of that seat.

Others will say that students can seek out political internships on their own accord. The problem is many of those positions aren't paid and, even if they are, may only go to the kids of parents already thoroughly engaged in our democracy. Our hands-off approach to civic experiences means that only a select bunch of students tend to accumulate the knowledge necessary to shape our democracy. Our country must do better than that by making civic experiences just as much of an expectation as civic education and as soon as possible ... not years from now.

Oregon and the rest of the United States cannot wait until 2026 to give our students the tools they need to secure a democracy that's facing threats from nearly every angle. We need more than tests of civic education to prepare our students for the task of leading our state into the future. We ought to provide every student with meaningful civic experiences that remind students that they, like the rest of us, are the drivers of our democracy.

From Your Site Articles
  • The "business case" for civic education - The Fulcrum ›
  • Community engagement as a vital component of civic education ... ›
  • Report: America needs to reimagine civic education - The Fulcrum ›
  • Our democracy demands an investment in civic education ›
  • Comprehensive civics education should lead with equity - The Fulcrum ›
  • We need civic soul - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • A Robust New Vision for K-12 Civic Education | Tufts Now ›
  • 10 Core Insights on Civics Education, and How to Improve it ›
  • The need for civic education in 21st-century schools ›
  • 3 Ways to Improve Civics Education | EDC ›
civic engagement

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Texas leads the way

Lawrence Goldstone

Why the Founders would be aghast at the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling

Beau Breslin

Risks and rewards in a polarized nation: Businesses face tough choices after Roe v. Wade ruling

Richard Davies

The economic blame game, part 1: Blame your opponents

David L. Nevins

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Jeremy Garson

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Jay Paterno
latest News

Watching the Jan. 6 hearings through the lens of both accountability and healing

Julia Roig
2h

Podcast: How positive and negative freedoms shape democracy

Our Staff
4h

Coalition aims to recruit 100K veterans and military families to staff 2022 elections

David Meyers
23h

Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary

Our Staff
23h

Wait, what? Democrats are also funding election deniers?

Damon Effingham
28 June

Podcast: The crucial role of political centrists

Our Staff
28 June
Videos

Video: Memorial Day 2022

Our Staff

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Cassidy Hutchinson

Watching the Jan. 6 hearings through the lens of both accountability and healing

Accountability
Podcast: How positive and negative freedoms shape democracy

Podcast: How positive and negative freedoms shape democracy

Leveraging big ideas
Retired Army Gen. George Casey

Coalition aims to recruit 100K veterans and military families to staff 2022 elections

Leadership
Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary

Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary

Elections
Doug Mastriano

Wait, what? Democrats are also funding election deniers?

Podcast: The crucial role of political centrists

Podcast: The crucial role of political centrists

Leadership